Chapter 6. Speech and language clinical issues in internationally-adopted children

Most IA children catch-up and rapidly learn their new language but others lag behind and need additional support to improve their speech or language abilities. During the first few years after adoption, professionals need to adapt their assessment procedures in order to determine which children are developing language or speech more slowly than their IA peers. This chapter reviewed procedures for assessing IA children at different ages during the language transition period. Once the language transition ends, IA children can be evaluated using procedures similar to other children. This chapter also reviewed some of the language strengths and weaknesses that are observed in IA children during speech and language testing and issues regarding which lens or other normed criteria to use when evaluating test results. Most IA children are adopted into high SES homes and attend schools where ‘average’ is often above average. Although IA children may struggle academically in these schools, most do not have a speech or language disorder significant enough to qualify them for therapy services. Alternative ways to provide support to struggling learners in the classroom were reviewed.